


it's been a while (but i still feel the same)

by usuallysunny



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:48:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26195893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usuallysunny/pseuds/usuallysunny
Summary: Five times the Lord Commander visits the Queen in the North—and the one time he stays.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 23
Kudos: 300





	it's been a while (but i still feel the same)

* * *

The ghosts of the past still haunt them, the first time he comes home.

It’s awkward in a way it hasn’t been since they were children. Sansa watches him ride through the gates on a white stallion, looking like a ghost himself. He’s a commanding presence all the same. His horse’s hooves pad wetly on the freshly fallen snow and the rusty gates creak and moan as a steward pushes them shut again.

Sansa descends the stairs and waits for him in the courtyard.

As he dismounts and makes his way towards her, she’s struck by a memory.

_Where will you go?_

_Where will we go._

She can hear his words, his gruff northern brogue, clear as though it were yesterday. She remembers the way he’d held her back then, the first of their reunions, the only person in the world she had left. So much has changed since then, people have come and gone, but that fact remains. With Bran ruling his own kingdom and Arya across the seas, there is only Jon. Things fell apart the moment they drifted away from each other.

She wonders if he’ll hold her now.

He finally reaches her and his gloved hands seem to twitch at his sides—but he doesn’t.

After a beat, he clasps them behind his back.

“Your Grace,” he murmurs.

He gives her a nod but can’t quite reach her eyes.

There are watchful eyes in the courtyard, blacksmiths and stewards and handmaidens. They don’t know how to greet him, how to look upon him—this man who used to be their King; now a broken stranger.

Sansa doesn’t know how to either.

“Lord Commander,” she gives a little nod back and she’s so cool, icy and impervious, but inside she’s burning.

She doesn’t want it to be like this, cold and awkward between them. Not after all they’ve been through, how they’ve lost and sacrificed and suffered together. There was a time, back when he was King and she was the Lady of Winterfell, when they shared everything. They won back their home together and fought together and rebuilt the northern resistance together.

She wishes he’d never left.

She wishes he’d never gone to Dragonstone.

She’s angry with him.

She misses him.

“Come,” she mutters eventually, unable to cope with the conflicting emotions that course through her body like wildfire, “I’ve had your old chambers prepared. Let us get reacquainted.”

Jon nods and follows her inside. She leads him to her solar and offers some ale. He sits down, settling into the chair like he’d never left, and quirks a brow at the taste.

“It’s your favourite,” she confirms before he can say anything, “much better than that swill at Castle Black. I remember it well.”

_“You’d think after thousands of years, the Night’s Watch would have learned how to make a good ale”._

She wonders if he’s remembering it too, how he had laughed. It had been such a lovely sound. She thinks he should do it more often, but she supposes he doesn’t have much to laugh about these days.

His mouth twitches into a gentle smile, eyes downcast to the cup.

It makes her smile too.

She takes a seat next to him, her own hands curling around a cup, and she thinks of that day at Castle Black again.

She remembers how it had felt when he caught her in his arms, the only brother she had left. She remembers how _he_ felt, all cool leather and steel buckles against her flushed skin. She remembers his warmth and the bite of his desperate fingers as he held her and the smell of him, all ale and winter and smoke from the fire. Most of all, she remembers how _safe_ she had felt. Safe for the first time since she had journeyed south.

He had promised to keep her that way, to go where she went, and somewhere along the way, they got lost.

Now there’s resentment brimming under the surface, a cool detachment, so much left unsaid.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asks, curious as to what’s brought him back after three long years.

“It’s been a harsh winter,” he says grimly, “we need more men.”

Sansa raises a brow. She knows Winterfell isn’t quite as far north as Castle Black, but they have felt the sting of winter nonetheless. She led her people through it, her time occupied with talk of wheat stores and grains and ensuring thick furs for warmth.

“You’ve come to recruit for the Night’s Watch?”

“Aye,” he nods, “if you have men who are willing, or even men who are not, we could use them.”

She nods numbly, a strange sense of disappointment settling into her bones.

“Your visit is all business, then?” she asks quietly.

His eyes dart to her, dark and steely grey and just like father’s.

 _Your father,_ she reminds herself, _not his._

“It’s all it can be,” he murmurs.

His voice is a little deeper and a little broken and Sansa’s chest tightens.

“The Unsullied are gone,” she reminds him, “I rule the North, our brother the other Six Kingdoms. Yara Greyjoy was the only one who argued against your freedom and she’s far away across the seas, and holds little power anyway.”

He doesn’t answer, dragging his gaze away from her instead. She watches a muscle in his jaw tick as he stares straight ahead, his fingers flexing and tightening around his cup.

The next words burn heavy and painful on her tongue.

“You could come home,” she whispers.

They must be painful to hear too, because Jon’s eyes fall shut.

“I can’t.”

His voice is blank, deep and gruff and cold like the North.

Her skin prickles, a strange heat crawling over it.

“You _can_.”

He sighs, running a hand over his face. He looks tired, she thinks. He looks _old._ His hair is tied back but still clearly longer and his beard is thicker and there’s a scar slicing his cheekbone that wasn’t there before. They’ve both suffered so much in their short lives; more than anyone should bear. Most people would crack under the weight of it. She wonders if he’s still suffering now, with an old title thrust upon him once more.

He looks at her again, the flickering candles bathing him in soft orange hues. She thinks he looks handsome—then she wonders why she thought that at all. It had just swept through her mind, unbidden.

Her skin bristles uncomfortably again.

“What I did…” he says quietly, “I don’t deserve to just come home and pretend it never happened.”

It’s concealed in euphemism but the words still hurt. Sansa doesn’t want to hear about the Dragon Queen. She didn’t like her then and she doesn’t like her now and she _never_ liked the idea of Jon loving her. It lodges in her chest, something tight and confusing and painful.

There’s so much she wants to say; _scream_. She wants to say Daenerys should never have been here, that she wasn’t a wolf and she wasn’t of the North and Starks stick together. She wants to tell him he _is_ a Stark, no matter who his father was.

She wants to tell him that she knows he doesn’t forgive her… but she doesn’t forgive him either.

She feels so many emotions, she can’t even begin to understand them.

In the end, she says nothing.

She leaves everything unspoken. They spend the next few days becoming reacquainted, smiling and laughing and counting the years. They tell stories of when they were children, of when he pretended to be a ghost, covering himself in flour down in the crypts and jumping out and making them scream. He gives a little bashful chuckle at that one. They talk about how she’d washed the blood from his face after the Battle for Winterfell; he thanks her for looking after him. They talk about Sam and Ghost and everyone they’ve lost—her parents and his parents, who he never met, and Rickon and Robb. She says Robb would’ve been proud of him.

There’s laughter and love and warmth between them—but bitterness still bubbles under the surface, raw and ugly.

And when he leaves, half a dozen or so northmen at his back, she tries once more to make him stay.

He refuses—and she doesn’t ask again for another year.  
  


* * *

  
The second time he comes home, it’s for Arya.

“I’ve called Jon south,” her sister says one evening at dinner, “I could have gone up there but I thought it would be nice for the three of us to be together. Except for Bran, the last of the Starks.”

She says the last part with a wry little smile, pushing her food around the plate.

Sansa straightens her back, rolling her shoulders a little with discomfort.

“Jon doesn’t think he’s a Stark.”

Arya’s thick brows pull into a frown.

“I don’t care about Rhaegar or Lyanna or who laid down with who,” she rolls her eyes, “our _father_ raised him. He’s our brother.”

Sansa nods but there’s a hot ball of unease in the pit of her stomach again. She wonders why it’s so hard for her to see Jon as a brother, when it’s so easy for Arya. She couldn’t when she was a girl. She had called him _half-brother_ since she was old enough to know what bastard meant. Now she’s a woman, the revelation that he’s her cousin is an easy one for her to accept. For some strange reason, she even finds it comforting.

He meets them in the godswood.

Sansa burns with jealousy at the embrace he gives Arya. He lifts her in his arms as she buries her face in his rough furs. It’s a reunion very different to the one they shared, no awkwardness between them, no bitterness—only love.

Sansa feels resentful. She feels tired.

"Look at you,” Jon rumbles when he sees Arya, letting her go and clasping a hand on her shoulder, “you’re a woman now.”

"But no lady,” Arya points out with an arched brow.

Jon’s mouth twitches into a smirk.

“Aye, no lady.”

“Thank you for coming,” she says, her voice suddenly sincere, “it wouldn’t have felt right to visit home without seeing you.”

Her visit is a fleeting moment. Arya moves like a hurricane, sweeping into their lives. In a few days, she’ll be gone again, lost across the seas to new adventures. Sansa misses her, but she understands the sisters have their own roles to play, their own places in the world.

Jon smiles again, his full lips curving under his beard, and pulls her into another embrace. He kisses the top of Arya’s head.

Sansa feels like an outsider.

He never looks at her that way.

He stays for a week this time and the distance between them makes her ache. She’s a _Queen_ , but she feels like a silly girl. She’s desperate for his attention, salivates for it the way Ghost may salivate for a bone, and when she finds him in the godswood again, she finally breaks.

He’s staring at the heart tree, his brows drawn into a frown and his jaw clenched tight. He stares like he’s looking for something, like he can wring some answers from the bark or between the leaves. They’re crisp and melting into deep red and orange, signalling the change of the seasons. Sansa wonders how many more he’ll spend away from her.

To her surprise, he speaks first.

“Do you remember the last time we were here?”

He hadn’t even turned around. He had just _felt_ her, sensed her presence. She’s not sure how she feels about that.

She figures he’s not talking about a few days ago with Arya and she sifts through her mind for the memory. When she finds it, she stiffens.

 _“Swear it,”_ his voice whistles through the trees.

“You’re angry with me,” she says calmly.

She watches his shoulders tense.

“No, I’m not angry,” he says quietly, tiredly.

He sounds disappointed; somehow, that’s worse.

“Then why won’t you hold me?” she asks, sorts of blurts out the question before she means to, “the way you held Arya?”

He turns to face her then, cutting an imposing figure in the shadow of the tree.

“I didn’t know if you’d want me to.”

She takes a step towards him.

“I don’t believe that,” she shakes her head, “it’s been nearly a year since you came to recruit for the watch and you never thought to come back to see me. But as soon as Arya wrote that she was visiting… here you are. You held her because you love her and you miss her. You always loved her best.”

A muscle in his jaw jumps.

His eyes look black and dull.

“You’re being childish.”

The accusation flares red hot inside her. She thinks of the little girl terrorised in Kings Landing, the one bent to submission by Lord Baelish and nearly destroyed by Ramsay. She hasn’t been that little girl in years and she _hates_ that he makes her feel vulnerable.

“Am I?” she walks until she can feel his heat, until she can nearly reach out and touch him, “tell me the truth. You haven’t forgiven me.”

She can’t say for what. She can’t _say_ it. She can’t breathe it into existence, all the pain and hurt between them.

He shakes his head and he can’t— _won’t_ —look at her.

She decides to push him. She wants a reaction, _craves_ it, craves the fire in his eyes when he’s angry. Anything would be better than _this…_ this cold indifference.

“I’m not sorry,” she says stubbornly, her eyes and throat burning, “I would do it again.”

Finally, his eyes flash, something dark passing through them.

“I’m sorry it hurt you,” she elaborates, “and I’m sorry it had to end that way, but you _were_ the better choice. You were born to be King. The North is my priority, I will always keep our people safe, and I was grateful for Daenerys’ armies, I _was_ , but—”

“— _stop_.”

His voice is low and dangerous.

When he looks at her again, his eyes are dark and glassy. It look like it hurts to breathe. The air feels thick between them, heavy with the weight of everything left unsaid. She’s choking under it.

“Sansa, I love you,” he says then, his voice thick with emotion, “but please—just… stop.”

He looks tired and broken and devastated but she loves him too—so she does.  
  


* * *

  
There’s an apology on his tongue, the third time he comes home.

“I’m sorry,” he says, returning to Winterfell just two moons after he’d last left it. She’s grown used to noticing the changes in him, the little lines around his eyes and the effects of time, but tonight, he looks unchanged. “I didn’t like how we left things last time.”

Sansa nods, beckoning for him to sit down. They’re in her solar, the place they often settle when he comes, and she’s struck by the realisation of just how much she misses him. She’s a good Queen, she’s sure of that. She’d a shrewd politician and her people love her. She’s good at reading them—but even Queens need advisors. Hers are good, strong northmen but not men she particularly knows or cares for—and she often feels utterly alone.

She would welcome Jon’s council. She would like for him to guide her and be there for her, the way she was there for him when he held the crown. She’d given him advice—he didn’t always listen, but _still_ —and she wonders how she’s expected to do this alone.

“I didn’t either,” she says, “Jon, I wish there’d been another way. You have to know that.”

She’d said that once before. It hadn’t helped then either.

His mouth twitches but it’s not quite a smile.

“Aye, I know. It’s alright,” he rumbles, “I won’t lie to you, I felt betrayed… but I understand you felt betrayed too. You said you didn’t regret it. I don’t regret it either, what I did. It hurt. It hurts still… but I did what I had to do.”

“It’s what you always do,” she says gently, “you always try to do what’s right.”

She admires that about him, how noble and honourable he is, even when it pains him. Now she has him, _finally_ , she doesn’t want him to pull away from her again. Now it’s out there between them, aching and raw, they can start to move on. They can start to forgive.

“And where has it gotten me?” he asks wryly.

She releases a humourless exhale.

“Far from home.”

“Aye,” he says, a bitter edge to his voice, “far from home, with another title from another life.”

“You’re a good Lord Commander. Everyone says so.”

He shrugs; he’s never been moved by flattery. He’s a northman, through and through.

“I still feel lost.”

“You could come home,” she says, because it’s been a year since he said _no_ and maybe things have changed.

 _She_ has changed.

“And do what?” he asks with an empty little scoff.

_Be with me._

The thought sparks through her mind without intention or reason.

It makes her pause.

She stares at him for a beat, strong and beautiful and half bathed in candlelight. His elbows are resting on his thighs, his fingers tented over his mouth and Sansa’s stomach drops when she realises what the emotion churning in her gut is. She realises why she can so readily accept him as her cousin.

With becoming Queen and all the trauma of war, she hadn’t come to terms with it before, hadn’t had time to let her world adjust.

What she feels for him has shifted and changed, like the tides of the sea. Her eyes are drawn to his full mouth, his strong muscles, his warrior’s physique. She wonders what those hands would look like against her skin, touching her in the dark when no-one can see. She swallows, her cheeks blossoming into heat.

She pushes it down, into a box where she doesn’t have to think about it. 

“You could help me,” she amends the thought slightly, “guide me. Arya and Bran are miles away. Robb, Rickon, Mother and Father… all gone. I know I’m a good Queen… but Jon, sometimes I’m so lonely, I can hardly stand it.”

She chokes on the confession, her breath catching in her throat. To her horror, her eyes and throat start burning and she swallows furiously.

She turns her face away, her cheeks flaming.

She feels him stand, slowly approaching her.

“What can I do?” he asks solemnly.

The concern in his voice makes her ache.

She stands too and moves over to the fireplace, her blurry eyes focusing on the flickering flames. She watches them dance, listens to them crackle and pop. She tries not to look at him, her skin prickling with heat, her body on fire.

She feels him before she sees him, the heat of him behind her.

She settles almost immediately. She envies that, that calm energy he’s always carried with him. For such a solemn man, he can invoke strong feelings. She knows he feels deeply too, that he loves passionately and intensely; he just shows it in very different ways.

She wonders how he feels about her.

She wonders if it’s changed, the way her feelings have changed.

She never answers him, _can’t_ answer him, the words lodged in her throat.

Instead, he asks—

“Can I hold you?”

The question resonates in her chest, a dull ache, and she purses her lips.

“Like you hold Arya?”

He looks at her then, gaze dark and steely grey. There’s something she can’t quite read behind them, an expression she can’t place.

“No,” he says simply, but his voice has dropped a note, “not like I hold Arya.”

She turns to face him, her throat running dry.

The air crackles between them, white hot and intense.

Her eyes dart from his own to his mouth and back again. His pupils seem to dilate, his expression darkening, as he follows the route of her gaze. There’s something else unsaid between them now, something other than bitterness and resentment.

“Yes,” she whispers eventually, “I think I’d like that.”

His expression is still soft and unreadable as he reaches for her. One arm slowly wraps around her waist, pulling her into his body, as the fingers of his other twine in her hair. Her own hands travel to his chest, her fingers gripping his jerkin in tight fists. It’s been so long since she’s been held, and longer still by a man she trusts.

He stiffens before he relaxes.

 _How many times has she touched him?_ she wonders briefly. A few times after they were reunited, next to none when they were children. It bothers her, how this must feel foreign to him. When they were little, he only ever wanted her to love him the way she loved Robb and Bran and Rickon; to give him even a _scrap_ of her attention. It bothers her to think of him believing he wasn’t worthy, and she holds on tighter—because he _is_ worthy and he is enough.

She tips her chin, her nose grazing the hollow of his throat. He smells like smoke and pine from the godswood and everything that’s good and right about the world. She holds on and he holds on right back. It’s painful and raw, everything they’ve been through stretched out and laid bare in the space between them.

When he slowly pulls away, the air seems to shift and change.

It burns hotter, brighter, and she’s suddenly aware there’s only a hair’s breadth between them. She can feel his breath, hot and sweet, washing over her. His mouth is so close, she can practically touch him, _taste_ him. She wants to. She wants him to close the gap and kiss her. Maybe she should be ashamed, maybe it’s wrong, but he’s _not_ her brother and she’s never looked at him as one anyway. Besides, her notion of right and wrong has been skewed since Joffrey and Ramsay. _Nothing_ could be more wrong than what they did to her—and she knows Jon would be different. He’d be so good to her. He’d make it good for her.

As fast as it happened, the moment breaks.

His pupils dilate as he blinks into focus. He clears his throat and takes a step back. Her hands ache from the loss.

“It’s getting late. I should go,” he says quietly, before he places a soft kiss on her forehead.

Her hands grip his waist and three thoughts burn through her conflicted mind.

_I forgive you; forgive me._

_I miss you._

_Stay.  
  
_

* * *

  
Everything changes, the fourth time he comes home.

He’s travelled south from Castle Black to attend a feast welcoming King Bran to Winterfell. 

“I did not think our paths would ever cross again, Jon Snow,” Lord Tyrion is saying, his characteristically playful voice solemn and serious.

Jon’s expression is serious too, a stark contrast to the joyful festivities taking place around them. 

“Aye, I didn’t either,” he rumbles, “but it is good to see you, Tyrion.”

Tyrion gives a little nod, noticing a maid with a jug of wine behind him and holding his empty cup out for her to fill.

She moves down the head table, refilling rich Arbour Gold. When she reaches Jon, leaning over his shoulder to refill his cup, he smoothly covers it with his palm. The girl drops back.

“I hear you’ve been named Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch again?” Tyrion says, arching a brow in question.

Jon’s mouth twitches under his beard, but it’s a melancholy sort of smile.

“For my sins.”

Tyrion’s smile is sad too. Sansa notices that he carries his pain the same way Jon does, very much changed from the man she was forced to marry all those years ago.

She thinks it a rather ridiculous title, one that is meaningless now. He has abandoned his post and lain with women, two of the most important vows. He had suffered a mutiny, the sharp sting of his brothers’ blades. She knows he holds the title because it has been forced upon him, because he’s the best man for the job, not because he wants it.

As the two men become reacquainted, Sansa turns to her brother. He looks different now, older and wiser and regal. He carries himself like a King, and the realm is flourishing under his unlikely rule.

“It’s good to have you home, brother,” she says quietly, “even just for a visit, just for a little while.”

Bran nods smoothly, that characteristic blank and even expression on his face.

“It’s good to be back.”

“I missed you,” she says, a muted pain kicking at her stomach, “I miss all of you.”

“Have patience, Sansa,” Bran says cryptically, “he will come home when the time is right.”

She stares at him, wanting to ask why he said that and how he _knows,_ but then Tyrion is pulling her to the side.

Before she retires that evening, she calls Jon to her chambers and tells him what Tyrion had proposed.

“You’re joking,” Jon says flatly.

Sansa scoffs, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Jon blinks at her before he runs both hands over his face. When he looks at her again, he looks frustrated and angry.

“He’s old enough to be your father,” he fumes, “and a _Lannister._ You really want to tie yourself to him again?”

“Him being a _Lannister,_ ” she repeats the word mockingly, “is precisely why I’m considering it. It’s still one of the oldest houses in Westeros—noble, royal blood. We can rebuild; it wouldn’t be like before. He’s a good man, for the most part. You know that.”

Jon’s jaw ticks.

“You don’t love him.”

She scoffs again, rolling her eyes.

“Why should that matter?”

“ _Of course_ it matters,” she sees Jon’s anger flare for the first time in she can’t remember when, “after everything you’ve suffered… Sansa, you should _never_ have to settle for less again. You should never be used for your name or for political gain. You’re the _Queen._ Men from all seven kingdoms would fall over themselves to be with you. You could have anyone you want.”

 _Not anyone,_ she thinks darkly.

“Yes, I am the Queen,” she says calmly, “which is precisely why I _can’t_ just think about what I want. I have to think about what’s best for the North. I need heirs.”

“Aye, you need wolves,” he insists fiercely, “not lions.”

His voice drips with disgust at the notion. He says it like it’s a dirty word.

_Wolves._

The word stirs something primal inside her. It makes her want to open her jaws and howl. It makes her want to sink her teeth into him, her nails, mark her as his. It makes her want to steal him, keep him, the only one who can give her what she needs because he _is_ her. She is him.

They’re the last wolves in the North.

Everything slots into place. It all seems so simple then. Maybe the realisation hits him at the same time because his eyes are darkening, his posture changing, and he takes a step towards her.

The air between them turns thin and white hot. It feels like everything has been leading to this moment. The dam has broken and there will be no holding back the river now.

“Tell me what you want,” Jon orders roughly.

He needs her to say it.

She swallows past the lump in her throat.

“I don’t want Tyrion,” she whispers.

His mouth twitches but he doesn’t smile. He takes another step until they’re in each other’s orbits, the fire crackling heatedly in the corner.

“I don’t want a man from Essos,” she murmurs, her voice sounding lower to her own ears, “or the Vale, or the Reach, or the Westerlands.”

He reaches for her, his touch achingly gentle as he cups her cheek. His calloused thumb swipes gently over her cheekbone. She leans into his touch, her skin blossoming into heat.

“What about your southron prince?” he asks.

“I haven’t dreamt of him in years,” she husks, her eyes heavily lidded as she glances at him, “I’m not that girl anymore.”

“Aye, you’re not,” he says lowly, his thumb coming to trace over her bottom lip. They part under his touch. “A Northerner, then?”

She nods.

“There are plenty of eligible noblemen in Winterfell,” he says.

She shakes her head, her eyes dark.

“Further than Winterfell,” she whispers, “I want a man with the true North in him.”

His eyes drop to her lips, where his thumb is still tracing the lines of them. They’re still speaking in veiled euphemism, but there could be no mistaking the intention behind their words.

They dance around it like the flames of the fire dance in the corner, but one of them is about to break.

“What do _you_ want?” Sansa asks, because people rarely ask him that.

His mouth curves under his beard—a sad, melancholy sort of smile.

“All I’ve ever wanted…” he says, “is to give you what you deserve.”

She thinks of his desperation to be noticed by her when they were children, his desire to keep her safe as they grew into adults. She thinks of how he’d threatened Baelish in the crypts that day, and how he’d bled for her and fought a war for her and helped win back their home— _for her_. Because she’d asked him to. 

“I think I deserve a man who loves me,” she says eventually, “a man who will treat me right. Don’t you?”

Jon nods, pupils fat and blown to black.

“Aye, that and more,” he says, then winds his fingers through her auburn hair, “tonight, let me love you. Let me treat you right.”

She shivers at the request, her eyes falling shut. He leans in, his mouth at her ear. When he speaks again, his low northern burr traces a shiver down her spine.

“I’ll be so good to you, Sansa.”

It’s a husk in her ear, a promise that hints at dark intent. She wonders when he stopped seeing her as a sister, and all the other reasons he might be doing this, and if he didn’t come back _whole_ , the day he was dragged back from the other side. If he’s fractured even more since what happened at Kings Landing and his exile thereafter. After-all, the noble Jon she grew up with would _never_ touch the girl he always thought of as a sister.

 _But he’s always treated you differently to how he treated Arya_ , she reminds herself.

When his mouth finds hers, _finally_ , his kiss burns.

His fingers bite at her waist. He pulls her closer. His teeth scrape against her bottom lip and he sucks it into his mouth, slick and slippery wet. He swallows the moan she doesn’t mean to make, and he’s all fire, his touch scorching through her veins. She senses the dragon in him when he’s like this; she wonders how she never saw it before.

“Sansa,” he sighs against her mouth, a breathy prayer. Her name has never sounded so important, a question and an answer, and she repeats his own in the same fashion.

They undress each other slowly, with soft kisses and shaking hands. It’s been so long since she’s seen a naked man, and never one she wanted to see.

She instinctively covers her breasts with her arms when she’s bare, the soft candlelight flickering over her.

“I…” she clears her throat, a tremor that has nothing to do with the cold night air passing over her, “I have scars…”

He shakes his head, gently wrapping his fingers around her wrist.

“As have I.”

He draws her hand to his chest, letting her palm rest over his heart. She feel its steady beat, so different to the butterfly stutter behind her own ribcage, and lets her fingers trail over the angry, crescent scar curving over it. 

He stays quiet and still and lets her explore him, her curious eyes taking him in. He’s beautiful but damaged, just like her. There are patches of raised skin and marks so deep, they’re almost purple. The scars are all long healed, but she wonders if they still hurt. He talks her through each one—scraps from the training yard when he was a boy, blades from the battle for Winterfell, his brothers’ knives as they left him to bleed out on the cold, wet snow. There are some where he’s unsure of their origin.

She doesn’t talk him through her own scars. It’s too painful. With anger flaring behind his eyes every time Ramsay’s name is mentioned, she gets the feeling he wouldn’t want to hear anyway.

Somewhere along the way, as he lets her take what she needs from him, her other arm falls from her chest. Then both hands are tracing over him and her breasts are bare. His abs twitch under her touch, the strong muscles tensing. When her eyes flicker up to his, she sees his gaze focused on her breasts.

“Can I touch you?” he asks, his voice husky and low.

Her chest feels too tight. No-one’s ever asked permission before.

She nods, swallowing past the lump in her throat, and then one large hand is gently cupping her breast. His thumb swipes over a dusty rose nipple. It makes her shudder.

“You’re beautiful,” he says quietly. She wonders if he’s always thought so. She doesn’t have the courage to ask.

He never orders; he always asks. He asks her to lay down on the furs. He asks her to spread her legs for him. He asks her to tell him if she needs to stop. When he puts his mouth between her thighs, she cries out. She’s never experienced such a thing, though she’s heard of it.

“I said I’d take care of you,” he murmurs into her thigh, the grit of his wet beard sliding over her skin, “this is how a man takes care of his woman.”

She shudders as his tongue slides over her again. She wants to be his. She wants him to be hers. Her back arches against the bed—soft, milky skin buried in dark bear furs. Her loose hair is a flash of colour, spilling like fire over her pillows.

In the moment, she’s not a Queen. She’s not the key to the North. She’s not a girl who has been used for her name and thrown around like a rag doll and manipulated at every turn. He’s not a secret prince. He’s not the heir to an ugly throne he doesn’t want, or a murderer, or an oathbreaker.

She’s just Sansa. He’s just Jon.

She’s trembling with desire by the time she cradles him between her thighs. He kisses her neck and buries his groan in the hollow of her throat when she begs him to give her a babe. She wants an heir with her eyes and his curls. She wonders about his dragon’s blood, wonders if her babe would be born with silver hair and violet eyes. She wouldn’t care. She would love it because it was hers and it was his.

Her fingers drag through his curls, across his shoulders, down his back. Fantasy melts into reality until she can’t tell where he ends and she begins.

He brings her to a third peak by the time he finishes. She holds him as he falls apart, trembling in her arms. Her fingers trail absentmindedly up and down his spine as he comes back down to earth—and she thinks about how far they’ve come.

She used to think him so insignificant.

Now, in this moment, everything _but_ him seems insignificant.  
  


* * *

  
The fifth time, Sansa calls him home.

She realises it’s the first time she’s done so.

He seems surprised too, as he sheds his heavy furs and stands before her.

“Your Grace,” he nods again, his hands clasped behind his back.

She smiles, thinking they’re rather past that now. They’ve seen every part of each other, inside and out. She takes a step towards him, something fragile and new blooming between them. She gently cups his cheek and places a kiss upon it. She feels the grit of his beard under her lips.

He stiffens, likely in surprise, his hands hovering for a moment before he takes her by the hips.

“Do you, uh…” he clears his throat, “do you want me to make you feel good again?”

She pauses. He thinks that’s why she’s called him home, like he’s some sort of stud, existing only to put babes in her belly. She supposes he is, in a way, but he’s also so much more. To her, at least.

Besides, there is a reason she’s brought him here.

“No,” she whispers, “that won’t be necessary.”

His brows pull into a frown. She can practically _see_ the cogs in his head turning. She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth, her hand instinctively coming up to cover her flat stomach, as she waits for him to figure out what she’s known since the day she stared down at her chamberpot and saw the lemon cakes she loved.

It had only taken him spilling inside her once. One time. If she were a more spiritual woman, she would say it was meant to be.

She sees the moment he realises, a heartbreakingly soft smile curving his lips.

“Really?” he asks quietly.

“Really,” she nods, gently taking his hand and placing it over her stomach, “I have your child inside me.”

He exhales, his eyes focused on his hands on her middle.

“What will you tell them?”

She shrugs, uncaring.

“It’s none of their business,” she says, “I don’t need a man, or a King. I’m a Queen… and my child will be a wolf.”

She watches the movement of his throat as he swallows.

“And a dragon,” he says quietly, painfully.

“Maybe so,” she whispers, cupping his cheek, “but you’re a wolf, Jon. You always were.”

 _Mine,_ her own wolf growls possessively, _I loved him first._

“I wish I could stay,” he says brokenly.

 _You can,_ she thinks, but she doesn’t push.

“You do?”

“Aye,” he husks and then his eyes turn dark, wild and possessive, “I want to see you.”

She arches a brow. “See me?”

A little hum rolls from his chest. He touches a warm hand to her cheek before he trails it down. Her throat runs dry, her skin bursting into flames, as he gently cups one of her breasts with his large palm.

“I want to see these beautiful tits full with milk,” he says roughly, “I want to watch you grow big and round with my babe."

She shivers with a desire that hasn’t been sated. She thought perhaps the first time would be the last time, that he would do this for her, give this to her, because he was her family and he wanted her to know what it was like to be with someone who cared for her. But she still wants him, just as much as before.

“Do you regret it?” she asks, almost afraid of the answer.

He shakes his head, his dark eyes focused on her face.

“Maybe I should,” he says, “I’ve broken my oath. I never dreamed I’d be a father, especially after… well, you know.”

His mouth twitches sadly.

She patiently waits for him to continue.

“But no, I don’t regret it,” he murmurs, “I _can’t._ I want you to have this, Sansa. I want you to be happy.”

She blinks at him, her chest tight and warm with respect and gratitude and _love._ It’s a very strange feeling, very _new._ She doesn’t know if it’s the way a wife loves a husband—she doesn’t quite understand the feeling, stuck deep in her chest—but she knows she has love _for_ him. If she’s sure of anything anymore, she’s sure of that.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she says then, leaning in to graze her mouth against his, “I want you to make me feel good. I want to make _you_ feel good.”

His mouth twitches gently under his beard.

“Alright,” he murmurs, giving her a little kiss.

He gives her another, and then another, and she loses herself in the pull of his lips and mouth. She walks them backwards as they pull off layer after layer of clothing, her throat thick with emotion as they whisper about missing each other and _I’m sorry_ and _touch me—right there—just like that._

His eyes darken, pupils blown to black, when she holds his gaze and slowly turns around. Her fingers dance over the soft furs. 

He pushes her down with a firm hand on her back—and takes her like a wolf.  
  


* * *

  
The bite of winter rages once again, the final time he comes home.

She counts his scars again, the new marks and lines on his handsome face. In the courtyard once more, she says “welcome home”, not “welcome back” and she leads him to the baby’s room.

Her chest aches at the vulnerability on his face, how unsure he looks, as he peers into the crib.

“You can hold him,” she says, leaning against the doorframe, “he’s your son.”

She watches him exhale, his fingers twitching at his sides.

“My son,” he repeats shakily.

His face is soft with awe, reverence, as he slowly bends and picks the newborn up. The babe fusses for just a moment before he relaxes in his father’s arms. It’s like instinct; like he just _knows_ he’s his Papa.

Sansa’s heart swells with love as she watches them.

“I’ve named him Robb,” she says, “I hope you don’t mind.”

Jon’s eyes turn glassy, raw emotion flickering over his face. She knows what it means to him. He’d loved Robb more than any of them. She knows he still doesn’t forgive himself for letting him die without him.

“He’s a bastard,” he mutters, agonised, as he stares at the little boy’s face, “I swore I’d never father a bastard.”

Sansa frowns, walking in and closing the chamber door. She moves over to them. She gently strokes her son’s raven hair, just the colour she’d hoped he’d have.

“I don’t care. He’s mine,” she says, a fierce edge to her voice. She defies anyone to tell her, the _Queen_ , that her son is anything other than the heir to Winterfell.

 _But_ —there is another way.

“He doesn’t have to be a bastard,” she says, her voice thick with implication, as her pale eyes flicker to his.

Jon holds the baby tighter, like he doesn’t want to let him go.

“Jon, I’m going to ask you something, and it will be the last time I ever ask.”

He nods, resignation behind his eyes. He knows what she’s going to say.

“Come home,” she whispers. She means for it to be a command, but it’s shaky and uneven. “Stay with us. Your place is _here_ , you belong here. Help me rule the North. Help me raise your son.”

He looks at the boy again, his eyes tired and bloodshot, and suddenly the answer seems simple.

“I can’t let him go,” he says with a little teary laugh, almost bewildered, “I can’t let you go.”

His son has changed everything. Maybe it won’t be easy, she wouldn’t want it to be. There may be a price to pay for abandoning the watch, for abdicating his post yet again, but she’s the _Queen_ and she’ll keep him safe. It’s her turn now. They’re wolves and they should be together. They have a new generation to raise now, a new pack.

For the first time in a long time, Sansa doesn’t feel alone.

She looks at him through teary eyes.

“Stay,” she whispers.

She’s still stroking Robb’s hair and with one arm cradling his son, holding him to his chest, Jon’s other hand comes up to grasp hers. He brings it to his mouth and places a gentle kiss on the inside of her wrist.

“Aye,” he replies, “forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while (invoking my own title) but I will die salty about GoT. 
> 
> Hope you're all staying safe in these boring but dangerous times! All my love, as always xxx


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